Tuesday, July 14, 2009

£250,000 salary for 'knocking off an article," well thats just chicken feed says Boris

Under Cameron the Tories try to make out they are all new, caring, sharing and in touch with ordinary people. Yeah right, we all went to Eton didn't we. Even the expenses scandal , where no party came out well, highlighted the class differences;moats , duck islands and country estates , never mind wanting to claim for servants!

In my last post I wrote about how low paid workers are asked to take a hit of up to £8000. Contrast that with Boris talking about his second job :

He told the BBC's Hard Talk programme that it was wholly reasonable for him take the second salary in addition to about £140,000 he gets as mayor.He added: "Of course I make a substantial donation to charity".When asked about the pay for the articles Mr Johnson said: "It's chicken feed."I think that frankly there's absolutely no reason at all why I should not knock off an article as a way of relaxation."I write anyway, I happen to write extremely fast."I don't see why on a Sunday morning I shouldn't knock off an article - if someone wants to pay me for that article then that's their lookout and of course I make a substantial donation to charity.'Out of touch'"Maybe that money shouldn't go to charity, maybe you'd rather I didn't make those contributions to charity," he added.

I do hope none of you are going to criticise Boris, I mean do you want to take money away from charity !!

This is of course a distraction, so he gives to charity, but he still trousers more in one year than most earn in 10 or 15. And lets get second jobs in perspective, many take them to make ends meet and I'm not talking about nice little lucrative newspaper columns. People who work all day doing a shitty minimum wage job and then head off to do something similar in the evening.

Boris may think this is all part of his 'charm, ' the mop haired buffoon. What it shows is he hasn't a clue what second jobs mean for most people and how insulting dismissing sums they can only dream of getting via a lottery win is .